This essay offers a complete analysis and contextualization of Guido Bentivoglio’s contemporary history „Della Guerra di Fiandra”. The comparison with works by historians from the Netherlands, France and Italy, also translated into several languages, on the uprising of the provinces of the northern Netherlands, reveals similarities in composition, stylistic devices, communication with readers and their explicit or implicit individual intentions: they wished to influence current politics. In contrast to the others, Bentivoglio did not write a history book that could be verified by many sources, but a political and military textbook for readers, whom he wished to instruct and delight with classical stylistic devices, situationally used sentences and fictional speeches. With his combination of res gestae with res fictae he created a variant of contemporary history.